EU holds first closed-door talks with Taliban on deportations

The European Union sat down in Brussels with Taliban representatives behind closed doors on June 23, 2026, opening a channel that rights groups said risked normalizing a regime the bloc still criticizes for crushing human rights. Belgium issued five one-day visas for the Taliban delegation, and the talks centered on deportations, diplomatic services and the Taliban’s call for “dignified returns” of Afghans to Afghanistan.

The immediate European interest was practical: several EU governments have been pressing to speed up removals of Afghan nationals whose asylum claims were rejected, along with people considered security risks or convicted of crimes. Afghans remain one of the largest asylum-seeking groups in the EU, making Afghanistan a central test case for the bloc’s migration policy as officials look for ways to increase repatriations.

That goal is exactly what drew the sharpest criticism. Human rights groups said the meeting could legitimize the Taliban and undermine the EU’s human rights obligations, while also putting people at risk in Europe and in Afghanistan. Since seizing power in 2021 after the U.S.-led withdrawal, Taliban authorities have imposed severe restrictions on rights, especially for women and girls, a record that made any diplomatic engagement deeply controversial.

The Brussels meeting was not an abrupt break. In October 2025, the European Commission said it had begun “exploratory contacts” with the Taliban after 20 EU member states asked for a coordinated strategy to improve returns and deportations to Afghanistan. EU officials have framed the outreach as technical, not political recognition, arguing that the purpose is to make repatriation of failed asylum seekers easier.

Still, the closed-door session marked one of the bloc’s highest-level contacts with the Taliban since 2021. For Europe, the talks showed how far migration enforcement is now pushing the EU into engagement with a movement it continues to condemn, and how the line between logistical cooperation and political acceptance is becoming harder to defend.